Society

Habana ‘52

There was corruption in the air, but amid the scent of lush femininity, the ﬁzzy taste of life being lived for pleasure alone, and the aroma of ﬁne cigars rolled on the thighs of virgins, who noticed? Bruce McCall reimagines the city of a thousand pleasures that was Havana before Castro.

Best of all was a balcony suite at one of the casino hotels way up there above Centro Habana, overlooking the harbor and the Malecón seawall. Overlooking just about everything. The horse races across the viaduct—a strange, thrilling, Fellini-esque sight—always began just at sunset in that molten golden light. The free championship boxing matches too—the Chicago Mob staged those and, interestingly enough, made more from the pickpocketing there than from the betting. Such a feel-good place Havana was back then.

Sundays at the Hotel Splendid-Fantastic

The only thing Havana outlawed was boredom, even on Sundays. You saved Sunday morning for the army courts-martial—hardly a dull moment, what with summary judgments and all. Then over to Habana Vieja to stand at a little peephole in a basement while the nuns took their weekly baths. Next came Hotel Splendid-Fantastic for brunch on the terrace and maybe a small wager or two on the aquadivers. Everybody kept saying the diver needed nerves of steel to stand poised up there on the roof waiting, waiting, waiting for the exact right instant to jump so he’d be sure to land smack in that pool of water on top of the biplane put-putting far below. Sure, sure. But what about the bettors? We were waiting, waiting, waiting, too. And it was our money.

Club Alligator

Four thousand nightclubs in Havana and a two-year waiting list for Club Alligator, and it wasn’t even a club. It was the Batista regime’s maximum-security prison, a dungeon with the sewer system running through, all drip and echo and clammy gloom. Happy turistas were free to grab all the champagne and shellfish and Montecristos they wanted as they cruised the twisting stone labyrinth past real live criminals. The air was filled with the sounds of haunting Spanish love songs from the guitars of strolling troubadors headed for the gala lights-out “party” that nobody ever wanted to talk about the next morning—except the cops, who had the photos. Club Alligator was all cash—and lots of it. More, if you declined to hand over your passport. Proceeds, they claimed, went to the Police Benevolent Society. Somebody once cracked wise about there being nothing benevolent about the police in the Batista regime, right in front of a troubador. Poor bastard was never seen again. Poor, dumb, loudmouthed bastard, you might add.

Autopalio

The spirit was just like the Palio in Siena: senseless, nasty ancient blood feuds, all prodded back to life in the form of this breakneck race through Havana’s maze of narrow, crooked old backstreets. Only, they used cars instead of horses and added that very Latin twist of running half the cars clockwise and half counterclockwise. The cops, who ran their own Policía entry, always made sure a few lug nuts were loose or sugar got into the fuel tanks. It was an insanely macho thing, dozens of expensive cars careening around and around, bouncing off walls, pedals to the metal, kids tossing bottles off balconies and strewing the streets with nails. Suicidal, you might sneer. But no; that was the energy of the old Havana breaking through, the life force of a passionate people, and if not for outlets like the Autopalio, there would have been a revolution long before.